THE MELIORATION OF THE AFRICAN.
With regard to the degradation of the African slave, that is admitted; but at the same time his position as an accessory to civilization is far higher than that wherein he was wholly the subject of barbarism. Now, he is dignified to the useful avocations of the civilized race; learns their rudimental arts and customs, and methods of subsistence; is subject to, and protected by law; becomes semi-civilized, and in rare, individual instances, as a lusus naturæ, even aspires to the nobler prerogatives of mind. The meanest slave that wears the shackle or feels the whip of civilization, in the reluctant performance of coerced labor, is a far nobler being than the African barbarian in his native wilds.